Misunderstandings
by Mahou Kitsune
Summary: A wave of misunderstandings plagues the 501st.
1. Chaos pt1

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Strike Witches, _but sure wish I did.

This story is in the same story line as "Unexpected Alliances," taking place sometime afterward. I ultimately intend to merge the two stories into a greater story arc, which I am developing.

The present story started as one story, then grew into two separate stories, or actually two parts of one story. I decided I'd try an intertwining story line for this one. There will a naming convention in case anyone wants to read in more linear fashion.

I hope you enjoy, and comments most welcome.

* * *

A biomechanical whale call split the night air. The Neuroi glided across demilitarized NeueKarlsland, making inexorable progress toward the Belgica border.

Rain lashed the dark sky; lightning flitted throughout the clouds, striking land in unpredictable, devastating fashion. Deepest black against thunderstorm grey, under a midnight sky, the Neuroi was only visible by its glowing red weapons points and the red beams that lanced from them.

"Can you raise the ground forces? Central Command? Base?" Flight Lieutenant Juutilainen shouted above the cacophony of sounds - Neuroi groan, thunder, hissing rain, anti-aircraft artillery.

Flight Lieutenant Litvyak, her partner in the air and on the ground, shook her head negative. Her magical antennae glowing red around her, she tried frantically to access radio frequencies - any frequency - to report their position to the defenders on the ground. Instead, static greeted her.

Sanya and Eila were on regular night patrol, flying above the clouds to avoid the heavy weather, when Sanya's antenna changed from spring green to blood red. The two had been tensely alert; normally Sanya tuned-in to radio frequencies at night, searching for hints of her father, or just to pass the long patrol hours. This night, Sanya only picked up a soft hiss.

Suspecting Neuroi of blocking radio transmissions, they descended below the clouds to reconnoiter. The heavy autumn storm soaked them immediately as they investigated. Sanya was able to triangulate a region of greater interference, and the two made their way cautiously in that direction. They radioed their actions back to the 501st Squadron base; with the radio down, they had no way of knowing whether their report was heard.

It wasn't long before they saw the battle in the distance; joint Karlsland and Belgica ground forces were hammering the Neuroi with mobile anti-aircraft artillery. The 88 mm Flak-37 shells exploded around the Neuroi like malicious fireworks. The Alien shimmered silver where direct hits and shrapnel scored its surface. It returned fire, but the flash suppressors on the guns frustrated its retaliation; in response it wildly strafed the ground hoping to swat its tormentors.

"The AA-guns aren't doing any good," concluded Eila. "We're going to have to engage it ourselves."

"But I haven't been able to reach anyone, it's too dangerous to fly into the barrage," protested the Orussian witch.

"There's nothing we can do about that," replied Eila. "We'll have to hope the ground forces realize there're witches engaging it in the air and call off their fire."

Sanya nodded. It would be similar, but different from their engagement of the Hive over Venezia. Then, the combined Allied fleet provided anti-aircraft fire during the heat of battle, but had known witches were in the air. Now, the Allied forces knew nothing of their presence, and so could not adjust their targeting. Both were equally dangerous, but in the former engagement their comrades desperately wished to avoid shooting them. Now, they wanted to hit anything in the sky that moved, assuming it to be an enemy. "We'll draw its attention over here, try to draw the Neuroi out of the range of the AA guns," the smaller witch said. "No reason to rush headlong into friendly fire."

Eila gave Sanya a fleeting, ironic smile. Both knew that Eila saw several seconds in the future and so had nothing to worry about on that count, but there was no reason to tempt fate, especially since Sanya did not share her ability.

Sanya fired a salvo from her Fliegerhammer. The rockets arced through the air, detonating on the Alien's dorsal side. The Neuroi made what could only be called an irritated noise. The Neuroi changed course slightly, but did not leave the firing range of the FLAK-37s.

"Damn," said Eila. "It had to notice us! Why isn't it chasing us?"

The Nueroi continued to fire randomly at the artillery emplacements. Among the trees the witches could see an explosion as one of the AA guns fell to the Alien's barrage.

"Hit it again with your Fliegerhammer," the Soumi witch suggested. Soaked to the bone, Sanya pushed limp strands of wet hair out of her eyes. Taking aim she let loose another salvo at the alien, which resembled a swallow-tailed squid beset by lamprey eels and barnacles. Three rockets slammed into the side of the enemy.

The Neuroi emitted an angry screech. Instead of turning, several red-tipped black barnacles dropped off the Alien and raced towards the night witches.

"Oh, crap!" exclaimed Eila. Raising her MG42, she rushed at the drones, shooting them down before they could reach Sanya's position. The mothership released another swarm of drones, which scattered, avoiding the Soumi witch. Eila shot two down, and had to give chase to others. More barnacles dropped off the alien, converging on her as she chased down the second wave.

Eila dodged red beams of destruction as the aliens tried to shoot her down. The beams missed the long haired witch, ripping into the forrest below. The ground forces noticed the additional drone assault and began targeting the smaller attackers. Eila dove, turned, and jack-knived more frantically as she dodged both alien energy beams and allied anti-aircraft shells. She was drenched, and couldn't tell where her sweat ended and rain water began.

"We have to retreat, Eila!" shouted Sanya, not sure the older witch could hear her.

The drones pressed their way towards Sanya's position. "Nrryyyaaaah!" Eila roared, performing a barrel-roll at break neck-speed, shooting down drones, trying to beat them to where Sanya hovered.

Suddenly, a barrage of anti-aircraft fire errupted below her, sending exploding shells into the sky, destroying two of the drones. "Crap crap crap crap crap crap crap!" Eila muttered under her breath. A battery of Flak guns had remained hidden in the forrest, opening fire once the enemy entered their firing range.

_We have to get out of here!_ thought the Soumi witch. _We're too uncoordinated here, we need to..._

Dread plunged through Eila, bringing with it waves of dizzying nausea. Through the chaos and confusion of battle raging through her brain, her Foresight showed an 88 mm shell exploding next to Sanya - then nothing. A whirling miasma of midnight grey chaos blocked her vision; she couldn't see past five seconds in the future... four...three...

"SANYA!" Panicking, Eila disengaged from the drones and raced to the younger witch. She heard the whine of an incoming shell.

For the first time without being ordered, Eila raised her shield.

The 88 mm shell detonated against the sky blue barrier, shattering it. The force of impact and compression from the explosion threw her back against Sanya. Searing, white-hot pain enveloped her left leg, her right arm, her head as shrapnel from the AA shell shredded her striker, zipping past and through her.

Startled, Sanya dropped her Fliegerhammer, catching the limp Eila under her arms.

"Eila? Eila?!"

Blood started staining the long haired witch's uniform, running down her face, arm, leg, mixing with the heavy rain.

"Nyet... NYET! Pomogitie!" wailed Sanya. "Lyudi! Pomogite pozhaluysta! Eila ranen! EILA RANEN!"


	2. Chaos pt2

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Strike Witches; I'm just playing in Humikane's sandbox.

I originally planned to alternate interrelated stories, but after reading the first three chapters in the order I originally planned, I felt like I lost the dramatic tension of chapter one, so I am now posting the story in linear fashion.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Also, thanks to everyone who has read, followed, favorited, and/or commented!

* * *

"Hold your fire!" the unit commander shouted. "There're witches up there!"

He sent a runner down the line of anti-aircraft guns, shouting "hold you fire" at each station. The guns directly below the witches fell silent.

Above, Neuroi drones zig-zagged around Sanya, probing for an opportunity to take down both witches. Sanya met each blast with her shield, which strobed in the gloom.

Sensing something wrong, the unit commander raised his field glasses to his eyes. "Gott in himmel!" he swore under his breath. "Witch down!" he shouted, "I repeat, witch down! Provide covering fire 32 degrees, range 1500 meters!" A second runner relayed the message down the line. The AA guns resumed their firing, exploding above the witches, scattering the drones, one of which dissolved in a silver burst.

To the first runner, the unit commander instructed "Inform the other units of the situation. Concentrate all fire on the main unit, see if we can't distract the drones into defending it."

The runner saluted and ran off into the trees. It would take him precious minutes in this storm to make it through the forest to the other gun clusters. In the meantime, the witches would be sitting ducks once they descended below the AA guns' available firing arc.

He looked again through the field glasses. The short haired witch was coming down fast; he estimated about 700 meters from the emplacement's current position.

He turned to his Sergeant. "Form a squad to recover those witches. Make sure you're heavily armed, I expect you'll be fighting off Neuroi to get them. Take as many panzerfaust and MG34s as you can carry. GO!"

The Sergeant barked orders to each gun emplacement; he was joined within seconds by six men, armed to the teeth with MG34s and MG42s, antitank grenades, baton grenades, an antitank rocket, SMGs... whatever they could fit in their belts, strap to their backs, or carry.

Nodding, the commander said, "current heading is 37 degrees... that way. Sergeant Weber will brief you on the way."

"Yes sir!" the men shouted in unison, charging into the forest behind Weber.

_May you get there in time_, the commander thought to himself. He turned to the gunners. "I want every man not operating the big guns to grab a machine gun and harry those Neuroi! Avoid hitting the witches at all costs!"

Shouts of "Yes sir!" rose from nearby bushes and copses, followed by the sounds of machine guns being prepared for battle.

* * *

The closer to the ground she got, the easier it was to protect Eila from the drones. At first they flew around her, a swarm of deadly gnats. Closer to the tree line, they could no longer swoop from under her, freeing her from defense from below.

The big guns resumed, exploding well above the descending witches. She was relieved the gunners knew they were in the sky. By the time she had reached the trees, the AA guns had taken down three Neuroi. The Flak guns were joined by heavy machine gun fire. She recognized the sound of Eila's and Marsielle's weapons of choice. As she lowered Eila below the canopy, the five remaining conical drones strafed the ground, slicing up trees, clearing away any cover she might have hoped for.

_Still_, thought Sanya, _It could be worse._ She kneeled over her lover and put up her shield, concentrating all her magical energy on maintaining a protective barrier between her beloved and the evil creatures above her. The Alien's hammered at her; through sheer willpower she endured their venomous attack.

* * *

It wasn't hard to find the witches' crash-landing site. Once Weber and his men got closer, they could see the bright blue flashes of Sanya's shield deflecting bright red Nueroi beams.

The reached the clearing in short order. There, in the center, the Nueroi were circling above the witches, firing beam after beam at them.

Through hand signals Weber spread his men out into firing positions in a semi-circle around the clearing. Watching the drones flit about the air, he timed their movements.

"Now!" he shouted.

A hail of machine gun bullets greeted the hovering Aliens. Caught by surprise, two drones detonated in showers of silver flakes. The other drones shot into the air and began blasting the edges of the clearing. Weber ordered his men to fall back and change positions.

The Ariel drones' beams cut down trees and scored the earth, but missed their intended targets. Two soldiers began firing at the Neuroi from a new position. One Neuroi swooped low to gain a better firing angle at its harassers. As it dipped below the tree-line a panzerfaust rocketed into the drone with a _click_ and _woosh._ The warhead detonated on impact, blasting the drone to Alien dust.

The remaining drones climbed into the sky and alternated between strafing the tree-line and firing at the downed witches. Weber's team returned fire, harassing the Aliens.

"Hans," called Weber. "check on the status of the witches. We'll cover you. GO!"

Hans dashes from the clearing toward the witches. The Neuroi, noticing him, turned to target him, and were met with concentrated fire. One of the drones was shredded by the covering fire. It began toppling to the ground when it was hit by a panzerfaust.

Hans slid under Sanya's shield. "I'm Private First Class Hans Bremmer of the NeueKarlsland 133rd Artillery Brigade," he announced. "I'm here to check on your status and recover you from the battlefield."

Sanya looked at the soldier before her; dressed in NeueKarlsland olive drab, he was covered in sweat, dirt, and grime. He was armed with a Mauser at his hip and a bandolier of grenades across his chest. He was an angel sent from heaven, and if not for the rain, he would have seen her tears of joy.

Choking back sobs, she replied: "Flight Lieutenant Sanya Litvyak of the Orussian Airforce, serving in the 501st Joint Fighter Wing. My wingman has sustained sever injuries and is unresponsive. She needs immediate medical assistance."

Private Bremmer looked at the other witch. Her body was stained vermillion. One leg was wrapped in twisted wreckage; the striker had fallen off her other leg when she lost conciousness.

"Can we get her out of this thing," he asked, pointing at the mangled remains of the Striker.

"I don't know."

"Wait here." Bremmer whistled loudly, then communicated the situation by hand signals to Weber. Webber signaled another soldier to join Bremmer. The soldier, dashing out from tree-line, was immediately beset by the remaining drone. Ground exploding around him, the soldier dove back under the canopy's cover.

"Sheisse," Weber cursed under his breath. His men continued to target the drone with their machine guns; it zig-zagged about, making itself difficult to hit, but was still able to blast away at Sanya's shield. _We're running low on ammunition,_ he thought to himself. _We have to do something quickly._

He ran over to one of the soldiers manning an M-34, the one who brought the antitank rocket. "We're going to make a break for the witches," he told the man. "Once the enemy's attention is on us, you hit it with the rocket."

"Yes sir!"

Weber gathered the other four soldiers and dashed into the clearing, firing at the Alien as they went. The drone took the bait, changing position to fire at them. As it did, the ambusher pulled the trigger, launching the rocket. The rocket flew across the clearing, exploding in the forest as the drone climbed steeply to avoid the ordnance.

Before Weber could register that his plan had failed and he was going to die, AA shells detonated around and on the Neuroi. It exploded in a shower of silver confetti.

Exhausted, Sanya lowered her shield and collapsed on top of Eila, alarming Bremmer. Weber, arriving at his side, demanded "What's going on?"

Bremmer briefed his sergeant in detail on the situation. Weber ordered his men to assemble an improvised field stretcher - long branches strung between coats.

"How do we get this thing off her," he asked rhetorically, examining the mangled striker for a way to remove it from the downed witch's leg. Reaching under the unit, he felt a handle. Twisting the device ever so gently to avoid moving the injured witch, he read the label under the handle. "Notentriegelung." _There's the emergency release,_ he thought as he pulled the lever, disengaging the striker with a hiss.

"Help me get this thing off," he called to the rocket-man dashing across the field toward him. Both pulled the striker off Eila's leg as gently as they could.

"Mein gott!" hissed the infantryman. Weber pulled the field emergency kit from his belt and opened it. He'd seen his share of horrible battle wounds: men sliced in half by Neuroi beams, blown to scraps by exploding ordinance, decapitated by flying schrapnel from beam ground strikes. The witch's leg looked as if it had gone through a meat grinder. Unfazed, he hit the unconscious witch with a morphine needle, then wrapped a semi-tourniquet around her upper thigh. Grabbing the rocketman's kit, he wrapped bandages around the biggest wounds.

The men returned with the stretcher. Finishing with Eila, he moved over to Sanya, checking her vital signs.

His men placed the wounded witch as gently as they could on the make-shift conveyance. "Should we make a second stretcher?" one of them asked.

Picking up the Orussian witch in a fireman's carry, he replied "No need. She just passed out from exhaustion. I'll carry her." He adjusted the smaller witch's weight across his shoulders.

"All right men, back to the guns! Bremmer, point. De Clercq, take the rear," he shouted.

The infantrymen picked up the stretcher and retreated back into the forest.

* * *

They burst into the gun emplacements fifteen minutes later. There was a jeep fitted to transport wounded already waiting for them. The unit commander had instructed the driver to make for the nearest field hospital, twenty kilometers away. The driver tore off, with Bremmer riding alongside for fire support.


	3. Chaos pt3

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Strike Witches, yadda yadda yadda.

I want to thank EtherealFox for the very helpful perspective on the use of language in stories, especially the mixed language setting of the Strike Witches world.

For anyone still wondering what Sanya said at the end of Chapter 1, it translates to: "No... NO! Help! Somebody! Please help! Eila's wounded! EILA'S WOUNDED!"

As always, thank you for reading!

* * *

Someone was pounding on the door. Minna came groggily to life, sitting up to get her bearings. In the bed next to her, Mio was also rousing.

"...nder Wilcke, urgent call for you. One of the night patrol has been wounded! Commander Wilcke..."

Minna jumped out of bed, throwing her jacket over her bed clothes. Mio was right behind her, second arm already in her navy whites. She dashed out of her quarters and the few feet down the hall to the command room.

Grabbing the phone from the night attendant, she barked "This is Commander Dietlinde-Wilcke of the 501st. Report!"`

Mio watched apprehensively, hearing the conversation one-sided.

"Yes... two night patrol witches... yes, patrolling those sectors ... can you identify the injured witch?... No? What is her condition? ... Where were they taken? ... Do they have a medical witch there... we're sending in air support and a medic to the field hospital ... Understood."

Hanging up the phone she said to the officers in the room, "Sound the alarm, we're flying in ten minutes." A flurry of activity followed as the base was prepared for battle: the ground crew was ordered to prepare the strikers, witches were ordered to the hanger, ground defense crews prepared for reprisal.

As they dashed to the strikers, Minna briefed Mio on her phone call. "There were no reports of anti-aircraft guns in that grid," Mio noted.

"We'll investigate that once we've dealt with the enemy," Minna tersely replied.

The other Witches were already in their strikers when they arrived. Minna leaped into her unit and started the magic propellers.

"I just received a report that, at 0230 hours, our night witches engaged the enemy over grid GRID-NUMBER. They were involved in a friendly fire incident and one of them was shot down."

The other witches gasped in horror.

"Oh no! Sanya-chan!" exclaimed Yoshika. Several other witches echoed her feelings.

_Poor Eila!_ thought Perrine a moment later. _She'll wither away if Sanya doesn't make it!_

Raising her voice to get their attention, Minna continued. "The enemy is still engaging with Allied anti-aircraft forces. Sanya has been moved to the field hospital located at the south-east corner of GRID-NUMBER.

"Miyafuji and Hartmann will proceed to the hospital at maximum speed. The rest of us will engage and destroy the enemy."

There was muttering between the assembled witches.

Lynnette raised her hand "Excuse me, Ma'am," she interrupted, "I'd like to request authorization to accompany Yoshika..."

"Negative!" Minna cut her off forcefully. "I need you for fire support against the enemy, and I need Hartmann to protect Miyafuji in case there are any other bogies in the area. Miyafuji's _only_ objective is to reach the hospital." Emphatically, she added: "The report is that Sanya is in critical condition. Any delay could mean... Hartmann is to make sure there are none."

"What about the AA batteries? We'll be flying into friendly fire, too," Shirley pointed out.

"We're to strobe our shields when we arrive to alert the gunners to our presence."

"But that will give away the element of surprise," she protested.

"Good!" snarled Minna savagely. "I want to look that bastard in the eyes when I kill it!"

The air marshall motioned for the witches to taxi and take-off, ten seconds apart. Miyafuji and Hartmann launched first, heading south-west, while the rest of the witches headed westward.

* * *

Shirley flew point, accompanied by Lucchini. Her instructions were to fly out to the grid location and recon, then report back.

The witches entered the grid and descended below the cloud line. The ground forces were still engaging the Neuroi. The forest was on fire, and even from this distance they could see that multiple gun emplacements had been destroyed by the alien. Trying to report back to Minna, she was greeted by static. She signaled the Romanga witch, and they rose back above the clouds, sopping wet.

"Brrrr... I'm so cold!" Lucchini complained.

"Same here," agreed Shirley, pulling the younger witch to her. Lucchini nestled between Shirley breasts and enjoyed the warmth.

After a brief pause, she detached and asked asked "What do we do now?"

"We head back to the others and report."

Both witches streaked back to their squad-mates, who were flying in tight formation. Minna held up a hand and the other witches came to a halt, hovering while Shirley gave her report.

Minna considered the information. "They must be jamming our communications again," she said. "Which means we'll be fighting without radio coordination." She thought quickly. Without means to coordinate, it would be seat-of-the pants dogfighting.

"When we enter the battle zone, we strobe our shields ten times, then engage the enemy in wings. I leave the formation at your liberty, but be aware of your fellow pilots; we're flying silent, in the dark, and we don't want another friendly fire incident. This is going to be an old-fashioned dog fight, so keep on your toes!"

"Roger!" the other witches replied.

They pressed on again; descending when Shirley gave the signal.

* * *

"Cease fire! Witches in the battle zone! Cease fire!" The command echoed through the gun emplacements as glowing blue disks flashed in the sky.

As the guns fell silent, the Neuroi turned to engage the new – and greater – threat that appeared in the sky.

Red beams lanced from red hexagons on the Neuroi's surface, blocked by 501st shields. Conical barnacles dropped from its surface, racing towards the witches.

The witches broke formation, Barkhorn with Minna, Lynne with Perrine, Lucchini with Shirley. They flew off in different directions to flank the main unit. The drones separated to follow, and were easily dispatched by the witches. The last of the conical drones separated from the main Neuroi. The witches turned, banked, dove, and spiraled, destroying them with little effort.

A panicked squeal emanated from the large alien craft. It banked wide, heading back toward the border between Allied and Neuroi controlled Karlsland.

The witches raced in, inflicting damage on multiple passes. The Neuroi regenerated, but the witches reappeared to harry it and compound the damage already taken.

The alien emitted an angry whine. It pointed its nose up and began climbing for the clouds. As the witches closed in for the kill, the three lamprey-like formations on its body suddenly disengaged from the main unit and attacked the witches.

Breaking off their attack, the witches evaded the bomber sized vessels. The lampreys filled the sky with beams, savagely pounding the witches' shields.

"Barkhorn, follow me in, take that thing out!" Minna shouted. She dove straight at the Neuroi, shield raised to maximum. Barkhorn drafted directly behind her, both MG42's blazing. The combined hail of bullets ripped away the surface of the Neuroi, exposing the core. Barkhorn converged her streams of bullets, shattering the core, eliminating the Neuroi in a shower of silver particles.

The Nueroi chasing Lucchini was fast; it anticipated where the Romagna girl would be, ensuring a beam always managed to hit her as she tried to peel-away from her pursuer. Shirley tried to provide covering fire, but the Neuroi shrugged off the shells from her Thompson M1A1. When the alien had closed the distance from the younger witch to near touching range, Shirley shouldered her rifle and sped in as fast as possible. Catching the black haired girl around the waist, she raced away from the attacker just as a beam singed the air where Lucchini had moments ago been. Shirley banked then sped away from the Nueroi. As it began turning to follow, she performed a hard Immelmann turn, then raced directly at the red mottled alien. She banked up as she released Lucchini in their signature move. Lucchini's stacked shield shredded the alien as she plowed through the center of the vessel, obliterating the core along the way and emerging through the back side followed by a fountain of shimmering Neuroi-stuff.

Perrine zig-zagged in front of her chaser trying to avoid the red beams that sprouted from its surface, while Lynne tried to acquire a firing position. The alien spiraled and banked behind the Gallian witch, never staying on a flight path long enough for the Britanian witch to fire a kill shot. The blond witch became increasingly frustrated, increasingly angry. Sanya was injured somewhere, and she was wasting time fighting this alien. Sanya, who had been her friend, who had been so kind to her when she needed it the most, was alone and injured, and she couldn't help until the attackers were destroyed. Enraged, she spun around in mid-flight, and flew straight at the oncoming Neuroi.

"How dare you hurt my friend! HOW DARE YOU HURT SANYA!" she screamed. "Tonnerre!" Lightning arced from her hands into the eel-shaped alien. Her raised shield deflected the shimmering silver Neuroi shrapnel as its remains flew past her.

The witches all converged on the escaping alien, hitting it from multiple directions. The Neuroi tried to shoot down its attackers, firing red beam after red beam at the witches, but they either evaded or plowed on ahead, shields raised.

Perrine raced to the main unit, firing off another lightning attack. The lighting arced over the Neuroi's surface, shattering it in a shower of glimmering silver shrapnel. As the surface shattered, Shirley flung Lucchini at the alien. The diminutive Romagnian witch smashed through the main unit; some of Perrine's lightning followed her into the center of the mysterious alien, detonating it from within.

Minna, Barkhorn, and Shirley savaged the surface with their machine guns, while Lynne waited until Perrine and Shirley had broken away from the vessel before she poured super-charged shells into it, blowing massive holes through the alien. The combined savagery of their attack exposed the core. They never knew who to award the kill to, as they all poured round after round into the spinning red dodecahedron, shattering it and the Neuroi with a distinct glass chime sound.

On the ground below, gunnery crews and infantry escorts cheered the witches' success. In the air, the witches assembled around Minna.

"What do we do now?" Asked Lucchini, hopefully.

Minna looked at each witch, before saying "We must patrol around here to make sure there are no other Neuroi lurking nearby. With the radar and radios jammed, there is no way of knowing if this was the only one."

The other witches finally felt the cold rain that had drenched them. "Roger!" they replied, dis-heartedly. While they understood the need to ensure the skies were clear, they all wanted to be with Sanya, to see her safe.


	4. Chaos pt4

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Strike Witches.

This is the last chapter in the "Chaos Cycle." I hope you enjoy!

Thanks to everyone who's read, followed, favorited, and/or commented. I appreciate your support!

* * *

No Neuroi challenged Erica and Yoshika on the way to the field hospital, which was unfortunate, because Hartmann desperately wanted to slaughter a few of them. Maybe more than a few.

Erica was sick with worry; her best friend in the 501st was wounded, and she felt useless flying escort for Miyafuji. She fervently hoped that they would get there in time for Yoshika to heal Sanya. Miyafuji told her they must fly as fast as possible, that there was a limit to what healing magic could do, and it was possible for too much time to pass for even her skills to be of use.

How much time had passed? They'd been flying twenty minutes already; it took ten minutes from when the base exploded to life and they took to the air, and who knows how long between when Sanya had been wounded and Minna received the report. Maybe an hour total?

"If it's been an hour, can you still heal her?" Erica asked. It felt as if a Neuroi was gnawing its way out of her stomach.

"Yes. Maybe. I don't know," Yoshika replied. "It depends on how badly Sanya-chan is hurt. I helped everyone on the Yamato, and some of them were badly hurt."

"How long from that explosion to your healing?"

"Half an hour, forty-five minutes? I'm not sure."

_That's good, isn't it?_ thought Hartmann. _That's only fifteen minutes more than the Yamato incident._

She thought about her friend, injured. The Neuroi in her stomach clawed at her more intensely. _Sanya'll be all right,_ she thought to herself, _Yoshika will fix her up, good as new. Think happy thoughts. Think of all the good times with Sanya._

She remembered their late hour conversations, going into the wee hours of the night. Barkhorn thought she was lazy, sleeping in until noon, but how could she stay awake after sitting up until 0400 hours talking with the night witch? She remembered when she confided to Sanya her secret girl-crush on Barkhorn, and remembered when Sanya, blushing deeply, told her with a voice barely audible that she was in love with Eila, and then cried with worry that Eila didn't feel the same about her. Erica had to smiled inwardly at that one; only someone ten days dead couldn't see that Eila loved Sanya back, but the Soumus witch sure did send conflicting signals. In the bath Eila actively competed with Lucchini to see who could be the most lecherous, yet she was painfully chaste with the Orussian witch. Erica remembered Sanya confessing her big fight with Eila the night before they flew 33 kilometers up into the stratosphere, and how Eila risked her life to be Sanya's shield the next day – and got confined to quarters for her troubles.

She recalled Sanya describing her family, especially her beloved, musically talented father, and the painful loneliness she felt not knowing where they were or if they were all safe. Sanya had said it was the not knowing that was the hardest to endure - not knowing when, how, or even if they would ever be together again.

She remembered the special treats Sanya would make and sneak to her when she got room arrest. Even though she had studied music in Vienna, Sanya had also taken time to learn Viennese cooking techniques, and was excellent, even though she herself was too modest to admit it.

Erica thought of how Sanya would play piano for them. (Where the hell had Eila found that grand piano?!) Sometimes she would sing, and sometimes someone else would sing while she played. Sometimes she would play classical music, pulling soulful emotion from the wood and wire instrument, sometimes she would play lively Liberion jazz or Karlsland drinking polkas.

And now her sweet, talented friend was laying in a field hospital, bleeding to death. The Neuroi stirred again.

"How about ninety minutes," she asked Yoshika. "Can you still help her after ninety minutes?"

* * *

They landed at the field hospital's runway; the air marshall taxied them over to a low, canvas building. They disengaged their strikers while a young man ran up to theme through the rain. He introduced himself as Private First Class Bremmer, and told them to follow him to the operating tent.

Yoshika ran through the mud behind him, then slowed to a stop just before the tent entrance. There, sitting on a crude bench made from split logs, was Sanya. Yoshika's brain had difficulty processing what she saw.

"Sa-Sanya-chan? How...what... wait..." Yoshika fumbled, confused to see the Orussian witch before her.

Looking up, Sanya launched herself at Yoshika, wrapping her arms around the Fusan witch. "Yoshika," she sobbed, tears still streaming down her angelic face. "Eila is dying! Save her please! Pozhaluysta!..." she begged.

Erica had also stumbled to a halt on seeing Sanya. Stunned to see her best friend standing before her unharmed, it took her several heartbeats to realize what it meant. She pulled Sanya away from Yoshika, saying "Go! Save Eila!" to the healer.

The cobwebs suddenly cleared from Miyafuji's mind. "H-hai!" she said, rushing into the tent.

Erica stood trying to comfort Sanya as she sobbed inconsolably in the cold rain. The Neuroi in her stomach renewed with a vengeance its attempt to escape.

* * *

A nurse met her at the entrance, already dressed in an operating gown, cap, and mask. "Are you the witch healer?" she asked.

Yoshika nodded. The nurse helped her prep for the operating room. Together they pulled off Yoshika's drenched uniform and wrapped an operating gown around her one-piece. She then tucked Yoshika's hair into the operating cap and slipped the surgical mask over her face. Finally she brought Yoshika to a sink where the Fusan scrubbed her hands vigorously with a horse-hair brush then dipped them in a sterilizing chlorine bleach solution after rinsing off.

After finishing pre-operating procedures, the nurse led her behind one of the screens in the large canvas tent.

There, on the operating table, lay Eila. Her skin was sunken, with a grey pallor. Yoshika could tell by the way the sheet draped over her body that Eila was completely nude underneath. The sheet was pulled back, exposing her left leg for the doctors to work on.

"The witch is here," the nurse announced, voiced raised to be heard over the hiss of rain pelting off the waxed canvas roof.

"Miyafuji Yoshika," she introduced herself. "Can you tell me what you've done so far."

Without looking up, the shorter of the two doctors said, "We've been trying to stop the bleeding and remove the shrapnel from her leg."

"What do you have going into her," she asked, looking at the two bags hanging from the drip holder.

"We've got a morphine drip and a unit of plasma," was the reply. The doctor dropped another piece of shrapnel into a enameled metal bowl with a *clang.*

Yoshika nodded. "Give me a second please," she said. Her tail and ears manifested and she was enveloped a bubble of blue light as she drew on her magical energy. She carefully ran her hands above Eila, assessing her injuries.

_No spinal or brain injuries,_ she thought to her herself, _good. Internal organs: unharmed. Face and arm: not critical. Leg: torn artery, shattered tibia and fibula, damaged secondary blood vessels, ripped and torn muscles, and second and third degree burns._ She also noticed that there were two more pieces of shrapnel that the doctors missed.

_First, I've got to stabilize her._

Yoshika held her hands over Eila's breasts. The glow intensified. _C'mon, now,_ she thought, _let's slow your heart down, steady, steady... That's right, sixty beats ... fifty-five beats ... steady ... Breathing slowing, slowing..._ Yoshika slowed Eila's heartbeat to forty-five beats per minute, her breathing to eight breaths a minute. _Good, now let's work on your leg._

With her magic she carefully explored the inside of Eila's leg. Gently, she tugged on the two pieces of shrapnel, pulling them to where she could remove them. "Forceps!" she called, discarding the shrapnel once she had them in hand.

Foreign objects gone from Eila's body, Yoshika turned her attention to the torn artery. With gentle coaxing from her magic, she began fusing together the tissue of the artery wall, intertwining the cells and promoting new growth. When the gash closed, she turned her attention to secondary severed and torn blood vessels. As she finished the last of the smaller vessels, she said, "giver her two units of whole blood."

"We've been been giving her plasma until the bleeding stopped," the taller doctor said.

"I've already stopped it," replied Yoshika. The Doctor looked at the wound as Yoshika pulled out and discarded the bandages being used to absorb the bleeding.

"This is the power of healing witches?!" he exclaimed in wonder.

As the nurse changed the plasma drip to blood, Yoshika turned her attention to the shattered bones.

_Carefully, care-ful-ly,_ the said to herself. She gently moved the pieces of bone into place. Probing, she found a stray bone chip that she maneuvered back to its origination point. She then started knitting the bone into place.

She didn't notice the nurse dabbing the sweat from her brow; her concentration was on making sure she set the bones straight so Eila wouldn't have any problems standing or walking. Her magic caressed the Soumi witch's bones, feeling its smoothness, blemish free, feeling the bones solidify on their own. Satisfied that Eila's tibia and fibula were set properly and healing, she turned her attention to muscle structure.

Eila's leg had been butchered from calf to thigh, torn apart by shrapnel and striker. Yoshika bit her lip in concentration. It was slow work; from Eila's calf up Miyafuji went strand by strand, reattaching the muscles, spurring them to regrow together.

The nurse switched out the empty bag of blood with a fresh one. Yoshika finished with Eila's thigh then turned her attention to repairing the pale-blond's skin. She gently moved the flaps of torn skin together like a macabre jigsaw puzzle, tenderly fusing them together. Where pieces were missing, she promoted new growth. She treated Eila's burns, first degree burns she was able to eliminate. Second degree burns she was able to promote cell regeneration, leaving bright pink patches that would heal into unblemished skin. But Eila's third degree burns she could only do so much - too much time had passed. Yoshika healed as much as she could, then minimized the remaining burn scars.

Finishing with Eila's leg, Yoshika finally turned her attention to the gashes on the injured witch's arm and face. Too much time had passed; Yoshika healed those wounds as best she could.

The glowing blue bubble subsided. The two doctors looked on in amazement. "I've never seen anything like this," the shorter one exclaimed. "Amazing!" agreed the taller doctor.

She clenched her fist. _I failed,_ Yoshika thought bitterly to herself. _I couldn't make Eila whole._

"Who's next?" Yoshika asked, intesely.

The doctors looked at each other in confusion. "You're done here," said the shorter doctor. "We've got the other patients under control..."

Yoshika cut them off. "I have more magic," she said. "Who do I heal next?"

Morning was almost over by the time Yoshika healed the last patient. She had moved through the operating theater healing shrapnel wounds and Neuroi beam injuries, then into the ICU tent, where she healed soldiers post operation, then the recovery tent where she took care of the rest.

"Who's next," she finally asked.

"That's the last patient," replied the tall doctor. "All we have left are headaches and paper cuts."

Worn out, Yoshika allowed the nurse to lead her back to the ICU tent. It was empty, except for a single bed. In the bed lay Eila, pale, but regaining color. Sanya sat beside the bed, asleep, her head resting by the Soumi witch's shoulder, her small hand enveloping Eila's. Slumped in a chair near Sanya was Erica. Seeing Yoshika, she stood up and walked over to the Fuso witch.

"Thank you," the Karlsland witch said quietly.

Exhaustion finally caught up with Yoshika. "Nnnng!" she groaned, slipping tiredly toward the floor. Erica caught her, and with help from the nurse, eased her into a bed so she could rest.


	5. Recovery

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Strike Witches.

Double update; I originally wrote this after Chaos pt.1. As noted in Chaos pt.2, I was going to intertwine the parts of the story, but after reading it for flow, decided it diminished the dramatic tension of the Chaos cycle, so decided to publish this in linear fashion.

As always, I appreciate everyone who has read, favorited, followed and / or commented. どうもありがとうございました！

* * *

It was a wonderfully lazy autumn day; leaves fell gracefully from the trees, red, orange, and yellow acrobats tumbling and somersaulting on their way down. Chores finished, it was time to play in the freshly mown fields, among the giant hay disks, and across the fallow fields to collect flowers and braid them in her hair. Even the bees seemed to be lazily collecting nectar, as if savoring this last respite from the cool fall temperatures and temporarily forget the oncoming cold of winter.

She skipped and whirled, singing a long forgotten nursery rhyme. From the horizon a flock of black geese flew in formation, growing closer and closer, merging together to form a black wedge mottled with red hexagons. The honking of the geese distorted into a low, undulating groan that grew into a higher and higher pitched whistle that came closer and closer to detonate on

_Sanya!_

Eila startled awake. Slowly, she opened her eyes. She was laying between white linen sheets, head on a soft, fluffy pillow. To her right was a small table with a vase of chrysanthemums and a small bowl of dark black candy wrapped in cellophane, and beyond that an open window, curtains fluttering in the breeze. It was a beautiful Indian summer day. The air was pleasantly warm, almost hot. Sunlight streamed in through the white muslin curtains, and the smell of autumn flowers wafted in through the window, while outside birds sang and insects buzzed, hummed, and chirruped. At the foot of her bed was an old steel floor fan, off. Hearing shuffling of paper she turned her head left and saw someone reading. It took her a moment to recognize the face.

Hearing a rustling noise, Perrine looked up from her book to see the Soumi witch looking at her. "Eila?" she said in surprise. "Sanya... Sanya! Eila's awake, look - Eila's awake!" she said, leaning forward and gently shaking the Orussian witch's shoulders.

Head on her folded arms, Sanya had been sleeping on the edge of Eila's mattress. She roused groggily then gasped.

"Eila!" she said, voice liquid joy. "You're awake!" The Orussian witch took her lover's hand in her own and gave Eila a light kiss on the cheek.

Slight blush gracing her cheeks, Perrine said "It's good to see you awake. How do you feel?"

"Exhausted. Weak." replied Eila. She looked at Sanya and smiled. "Wait," she said, "Sanya! You're okay! Thank god!" She reached up and embraced Sanya, nestling in the smaller witch's shoulder, holding her as tightly as she could.

She let Sanya go and looked around at her surroundings. "Where am I? How did I get here...?"

Perrine quietly stood up and left the room while Sanya told Eila what had happened.

"You were brought back to base after 2 days recovering in the field hospital," concluded Sanya.

"Huh. How long have I been out?"

"About five days," replied the doctor attendant, standing behind Perrine. Sanya looked up imploringly at the long haired Karlslander. "You can keep talking while I take her vitals," she smiled. She listened to Eila's heart and breathing, checked her pulse, blood pressure, and temperature, and tested her reflexes, writing the results on the clipboard she took from the hook in the footboard of the bed.

"You gave me a horrible scare," scolded the Orussian witch gently. "What were you thinking?"

"I saw you getting hit by the antiaircraft gun... I couldn't..." Eila flapped her arms helplessly.

"Eila-san!" Eila looked up to see Yoshika's smiling face by the bed. "Wonderful! How do you feel?"

Eila lay back on the pillow, exhaling with exhaustion. "Like a dirty rag somebody wrung out to dry." Sanya shot her a scolding look.

"Good!" said Yoshika, voice chipper. "That's how you're supposed to feel. You were seriously injured, and it was difficult healing you. I've got to give you a couple more treatments, but you should be able to be discharged tomorrow morning."

The door to the recovery room opened again. In came pouring Shirley, Lynne, Minna, Barkhorn, and Mio.

"Hey, you're alive!" said Shirlely, lustily, grin splitting her face ear to ear.

"Oh, Eila! I'm so happy to see you alright!" seconded Lynne.

The witches crowded into the room.

"You had us worried for a while," said Minna, voice hovering somewhere between humor and concern.

"Yoshika will have you feeling good as new!" Barkhorn said, rare grin on her face.

"Of course she will," seconded Sakamoto, smiling proudly at her protégée's skills.

"Well, uh, you see..." began Yoshika, nervously. The other witches turned to stare at her. They looked equally stunned that she hadn't agreed wholeheartedly.

"What are you saying, Miyafuji? She won't recover from her injury?" asked Minna, voice with a hint of shrillness from growing panic.

"No no no no!" replied Yoshika, waving her hands in front of her. "It's nothing like that! It's just, well, uh..."

"Spit it out!" barked Major Sakamoto.

"Indeed! I true soldier must know the facts and face them unflinchingly!" Barkhorn pronounced. "Every second in battle requires..." her mini-lecture was cut short by Minna's hand on her shoulder. "Oh."

"What is it?" asked Eila, quietly. Her eyes were liquid pools as she waited for Yoshika's bad new.

"Well, the thing is," said Yoshika nervously, "I was able to mend your bones, arteries, and muscles, but I wasn't able to get rid of all your scars. It was too late to heal them, especially on your leg. I'm really sorry, Eila, I am!"

Eyes wide saucers, Eila's head disappeared under the bed-sheet. A few seconds later, it reappeared, a forlorn expression on her face.

"Let me see," said Sanya, reaching for the sheet. Eila clamped it down tightly to her body. "Now, Eila," she said, quietly, "you know I'm going to see sooner or later. It may as well be now."

Defeated, Eila loosened her grip on the sheet. Sanya's head disappeared underneath. Not long after, a muffled voice said "Oh. That's not so bad!" Her head popped back out. "It makes you look a bit roguish, like a pirate," she said, the hint of an impish smile at the corner of her mouth.

Eila blinked several times. _Did Sanya just say that?_ "R...really?" she asked, tentatively.

Sultrily: "Oh, yes, it's very dashing!"

Sour look on her face, Barkhorn reached into her pocket, handed a five karlsmark note to Shirley. She knew the moment she had made it she had a losing bet.

'N..not just your leg," continued Yoshika, fidgeting as if covered by spiders. "There's some on your arm and the one on your cheek, too. I did my best to minimize them, but..."

Eila looked down at her right arm - three thin white lines were visible; not large or angry - just... there. She reached up to feel the scar parallel and below her right eye. She had never been vain, but she did want to look her best for Sanya.

Sanya took Eila's arm and lowered it, then gently kissed the scar on her cheek. She then kissed her lover on the lips. After a moment Eila kissed Sanya in return.

The assembled witches each fumbled around and handed five karlsmarks to Shirley, grumbling.

"Ho, ho!" Shirley laughed quietly to herself as she counted her money. "I'll have to buy more salmiakki for Eila..."

"Okay, everyone," said Yoshika. "I need to give Eila another treatment."

"Sanya," Said Minna, smiling at the Orussian. "You need to retire now. You have patrol tonight."

"I want to join her," started Eila. She sat up an tried to get out of the bed, but was stopped by Yoshika's hand and admonition: "No, your healing isn't finished. If you try flying now you could shatter your tibia and fibula again, and I'd have to amputate your leg beneath the knee."

Eila gave Yoshika a look of horror.

"Less dramatically speaking," interrupted Minna with a smile to defuse the situation, "Your striker unit was completely destroyed, and there is no spare - for obvious reasons."

"Ooh! That's right!" interjected Shirley. She reached into her breast pocket and pulled out some nuts and a spring. "I managed to salvage these. You might need them sometime." She placed the parts on the table next to the candy. Eila looked at them as if they were some sort of nasty insects.

"Get well soon! See you tomorrow!" they wished Eila as they left the room, and Yoshika began to apply magic to boost the Soumi witch's healing.


	6. Incident Report

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Strike Witches.

Finally posted another chapter. Work has been very busy the past month, had a couple ideas I had to write down (_Tea Time_ and _Snowflake_), and have also been plotting out a longer, integrated story incorporating _Misunderstandings_ and _Alliances_.

Hope you enjoy, and as always, I thank everyone who has read, followed, favorited, and commented.

* * *

Yoshika enveloped Eila in a bubble of cool blue magic. Hands over the Soumus witch's leg, she concentrated her healing powers on promoting the regeneration of the long haired witch's bones, arteries and veins.

"That feels funny," Eila exclaimed.

"Oh? How?" Yoshika asked.

"It tingles, kind of like when your foot falls asleep, but more... funny."

"Does it hurt, or is it unpleasant?"

"No, it actually feels kind of good, but it still feels funny."

"Well, I'm told people experience healing differently. When you were healed by other witches, did it feel like this, too."

Eila gave the Fuso witch a wry look.

"Oh, right. This is your first time," said Yoshika, returning her concentration to the tall witch's leg. "Well, this might feel a bit different from regular healing. I'm promoting cell regrowth and strengthening right now. After this session you should be ready to go through rehab."

"Rehab?" Eila said the word as if it tasted awful.

"Yes. Even though you will be healed, we have to be sure that I set the bones and muscles properly, and that the arteries are strong enough to support strenuous blood flow. You will go through some walking and running exercises, some weight training, and balance and flexibility training after which I'll do a magic check on you to make sure everything is okay. If all is well, that'll be done in a couple days and you'll be ready to fly again as soon as your replacement striker arrives."

Eila lay back and sighed.

"Cheer up," encouraged Yoshika. "This is the normal recovery process; Barkhorn, Sakamoto, Shirley, and Perrine all went through the same thing when they were injured. You'll be back in the air in no time."

They sat in silence for the rest of the thirty minute session while Yoshika carefully applied healing energy. As Yoshika's healing magic subsided and her familiar's ears and tails disappeared, Eila asked "How long will I feel weak like this?"

"That? That's not magic or your injury," Yoshika said, heading toward the door. "You've been fed intravenously for the past five days. You need to eat some real food to get your energy back. I'll have some sent to you." She wiggled her fingers good-bye and slipped out of the room.

Turning around, she saw Minna sitting on the bench in the hallway. She was reading a document inside a brown folder. On the seat next to her was a stack of similar folders with a spiral notebook and pencil on top.

"Is she well enough for me to speak with her?," Minna asked, looking up.

"Uh, yes..." the Fuso witch replied. "She should get some rest, though... and she needs to eat..."

"This shouldn't take too long."

Yoshika looked at the Wing Commander's face as she stood up and collected her things; it was set in the grim expression she reserved for serious disciplinary actions. "O...okay," she replied, heading quickly to laundry duty where Lynne would already be working. _Poor Eila_, she thought to herself as she scuttled away. _She's going to wish I hadn't saved her..._

Minna entered the recovery room and shut the door behind her, discreetly locking it. This was one of the duties she disliked the most about her position: the post-incident interview. There was very little she could do to soften the interrogation nature of the interview - its purpose was to find the cause of the various types of incidents, whether it be a crash, injury, friendly fire incident, or service member gone AWOL. What made it worse was the fact it had to be conducted as quickly after an incident as possible.

She grimaced slightly as she recalled Sanya's interview.

Radio communication returned almost half an hour after the Neuroi was destroyed. Static and distortion plagued communications initially, but soon the interference dissipated, and they could resume regular communications. After confirming with base that radar and forward observers reported no additional enemy contact, and confirming with the Flak batteries that they understood the 501st was patrolling the skies above them, she radioed Hartmann at the field hospital.

"Flight Lieutenant Hartmann, report," she ordered. "Have you reached the field hospital?"

"Yes," the diminutive Karlslander reported. "We reached the hospital with no incident."

"What is Sanya's status?"

"Sanya is fine and unhurt. It was Eila who was shot down."

Pandemonium broke out over the radio.

"That's impossible!"

"What happened?"

"What?! Eila?!"

"But she can't be hit!"

"Cut the chatter!" demanded Minna, harshly. To Erica, she said "Please confirm: Eila was shot down?"

"Yes. Eila was shot down. Miyafuji is in the operating theater with her now."

"What is her condition?"

"Condition critical."

"Has Flight Lieutenant Litvyak briefed you on the incident?"

Erica looked down at her friend. Clutching the Karlslander's uniform lapels with both hands and head burried in Erica's chest, Sanya's was sobbing uncontrollably. "Negative; she has not been able to give a report yet."

Minna nodded to herself. Skies clear, she ordered the other witches back to base while she and Trude flew to the field hospital. The rest of the 501st complied, complaining bitterly.

At the field hospital she met the commanding officer and secured a interrogation room. She had Sanya brought to her for questioning. It was one of the hardest tasks she had ever performed - grilling Sanya while Yoshika was still operating on Eila.

"Flight Lieutenant Sanya V. Litvyak; this is a formal inquiry into the events surrounding the wounding of your wingman. I want you to describe the events leading to Flight Lieutenant Eila Ilmatar Juutilainen's being shot down," Minna began. Gertrud Barkhorn stood behind Minna as witness, face expressionless as stone. Minna had summoned her magic, standard protocol for such proceedings - she needed to use her magic to verify that what was being told was truthful. Beneath Trude's stony expression she could sense worry for her injured squad-mate and distress and self loathing at having to do this to Sanya right now. Minna shared that self loathing, yet knew this was a necessary task.

Sanya sat on a spartan wooden chair on the other side of the table, crumpled in on herself. With much anguish and coaxing, she related the events leading to Eila's being shot down.

"You did not enter into the firing range of the AA batteries?"

"No, Ma'am. Not the batteries that were engaging the enemy when we entered the battle zone."

Three different ways Minna had asked, and each answer was consistent: according to Sanya they had not knowingly entered the zone of friendly fire. She had Gertrud escort Sanya back to the operating theater tent. She then made arrangements with the commanding officer to have Eila transferred back to the 501st base as soon as Miyafuji determined her fit for travel.

She and Trude waited until a military nurse came out to tell them that Yoshika had finished with Eila and had moved on to healing other patients. They then flew back to base, leaving Erica with Sanya and Miyafuji.

Minna sat down in one of the chairs by the wounded witch's bed, putting her folders on the other. Taking her notebook and pencil, she said "I'm glad you've regain consciousness. I hope you recover soon."

"I have Miyafuji to thank," replied Eila, humbly.

"You know, she felt really bad about not being able to heal you fully. She went on to heal everyone else in the hospital, and wound up spending two days there herself recovering from exhaustion."

Eila contemplated this news. "She needn't worried," she said. "I'm grateful she kept me alive."

Minna flipped open her notebook. "You probably know why I am here," she began.

"You have to investigate the events that led to my being shot down," Eila affirmed. "I expected this." Eila had gone through many similar interviews while with the Soumus No. 24 Squadron. "I've never been on this side of the inquiry, is all."

"Oh, right. Nikka Katajainen." Minna realized that, with all the mishaps suffered by "Jinxed" Katajainen, Eila would have gone through these interviews quite frequently.

"Okay, then," Minna Continued. "Please describe the events of that night."

Eila related to her how she and Sanya had suspected Neuroi activity when Sanya's magical radar and radio reception weren't picking up signals, how they had triangulated the probable origin, and how they had descended below the cloud-line and saw the battle between Alien and Allied artillery.

"What was the course of action you and Sanya took?"

"We tried to draw the Neuroi away from the Flak guns to engage it."

"Who made that decision?"

"Sanya."

"Did you agree with it?"

"Yes."

"Did you comply?"

"Yes."

"I understand you flew toward the Nueroi and the antiaircraft guns."

"The Neuroi released drones. I engaged them at the edge of the AA guns' firing range."

"Why did you do that?"

"To provide defensive fire for Sanya. She could not have engaged the number of drones with her Fliegerhammer."

"How many drones were there?"

"I estimated about ten each release."

"How many releases?"

"I counted three."

"You said you came under friendly fire when you engaged the drones."

"Yes, the ground defenders targeted the drones."

"What did you do then?"

"I left the zone of friendly fire."

"This put Sanya at risk?"

"Only in that the drones were closer to Sanya."

"And the anti-aircraft guns?"

"I moved out of the range of the guns engaging the Neuroi."

"When did you and Sanya come under direct fire from Flak guns?"

"As I left the zone of engagement the drones followed me. I engaged them near Sanya while trying to protect her. That's when we came under fire."

"Where were the guns located?"

"They appeared to be directly below us."

"You were able to evade the AA fire?"

"Yes."

"What did you do once the guns below you began firing."

"I tried to eliminate the drones to protect Sanya."

"Did you try to retreat?"

"I did not have time, but my intent was to retreat."

"How did you get hit?"

Eila paused, remembering the feeling of ominous dread and emptiness she felt when she Foresaw the shell hitting Sanya. "I Foresaw a shell hitting Sanya. I flew over to protect her."

"And how did you propose to do that?"

"I raised my shield."

"You? On your own?"

Eila shot Minna an indignant look.

"Sanya can project her own shield," Minna continued. "Why did you think you needed to use your own shield?"

Staring at her covered knees, Eila clutched her sheets. Voice cracking, she said "I didn't see her survive."

Minna closed her notebook. She had all the information she needed for her report. Her conclusion would be that the two witches did not act recklessly in battle, that the friendly fire incident was due to the inability to communicate with the ground forces.

Taking the Soumi witch completely off-guard, Minna said angrily "You little fool! What if you had died? What about Sanya? What would happen to her?"

Eila visibly wilted. Staring gloomily at the sheets, she finally said, tears forming in her eyes, "I'd rather it be me than Sanya. I love her. I'd die happy knowing she was safe."

Minna felt a pang of guilt; she remembered the loneliness and dispair she felt when she received Kurt's official death notice. She had cried in her bed at night for months, and refused to become close to another person, terrified of losing them. Softening, she placed her hand gently on Eila's. "I'm glad you didn't."

She gathered her things and stood up. "Thank you for your cooperation." More softly, intimately, Minna continued. "Please get better quickly. We all miss you." She unlocked the door, bade Eila farewell and left. As she shut the door behind her, she thought _At this rate I may as well give my entire month's pay to Yeager_.

Outside an attendant was waiting patiently with Eila's meal.


	7. Visitors

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Strike Witches

A longer chapter this time; I may have gotten carried away writing it. I hope you enjoy!

I want to thank everyone who has taken their valuable time to read, review, favorite, and follow. I sincerely appreciate your support!

* * *

Someone knocked on the recovery room door. Eila was laying back in the bed, drowsily digesting her meal.

Whoever was on duty in the kitchen had made a concerted effort to cook Soumus comfort food. The tray the attendant brought had a plate of sausages with sautéed mushrooms and mashed potatoes, a small bowl of pea-soup, _karjalanpiirakka_, slices of fresh cheese, _pulla_ filled with sweet whipped cream and berry jam, and a steaming cup of black coffee. She shared a portion of her _karjalanpiirakka_ with the attendant, who had shown an interest in it and expressed a liking after having a taste. She had made a mental note to find out who cooked the meal and thank them.

Feeling better after a hot meal from home, she called "come in."

The door opened cautiously. A man's head popped out from behind it. "It's okay, guys," he said to someone behind him. He entered the room with four other men dressed in blue overalls. It took Eila a moment to recognize the men piling into the room: it was the air marshall and night witches' flight crew.

"Huh? What brings you guys here?" she asked.

"We heard you were injured," one of the mechanics said wryly, "and came by to visit." Eila recognized him as the brunette man who worked on her strikers.

"Yeah," said the blonde man who worked on her strikers, "It's been pretty quiet without you. We hope you get better soon and come back!"

Eila was embarrassed. How many times had she sortied at night, and she still hadn't memorized the names of the mechanics and air marshall? She didn't even realize they knew who she was, apart from a night witch whose strikers it was their job to keep in working condition.

The air marshall handed her a card. It had a vase of flowers on it, and a tiger-striped cat. Inside, they had written "Get well soon", "We miss you", "Hope to see you in the skies soon." It was signed Udo, Tomas, Ulrich, Otto and Heinrich. The card jogged her memory, and she started placing names with faces.

"Aw, gee, guys! Thanks! I didn't know you cared..." she said, embarrassed grin on her face.

"What?! Not care?!" said Ulrich, the short, blonde, bespectacled mechanic who maintained Eila's striker, with mild indignation. "You're our night witch," he said, fiercely protective.

"Yeah!" the other men echoed in agreement.

Tomas, the tall, skinny brunette assigned to Eila's striker handed her a box tied with string.

"What's this?" she asked.

"Open it," he said.

Inside was a stuffed fox holding a stuffed cat. The craftsmanship was exquisite, as was the attention to detail. "Where did you find this," asked Eila, admiringly.

"Well, you see" Tomas began, hesitatingly. "My grandmother lives in Holzhiem. When you saved the city, she wanted to make a thank-you gift, so I told her your familiar is a black fox. After you were hurt, I asked her to add the cat..."

Eila blinked with sudden realization. "Wait, you guys know...?" she began.

Udo, the air marshall, began laughing. "It's not like you've kept it a secret," he said. "But," he continued in a conspiratorial voice, "that's nobody's business but your own, now, is it?"

"Uh, er, but..." began Eila, flapping her arms, flustered.

"Oh! Hey! We almost forgot! Heinrich!" Udo said, turning to the bespectacled red-headed Karlslander who worked on Sanya's strikers.

Heinrich nudged Otto, a blond about his height who assisted him in maintaining Sanya's equipment, in the ribs. Out of pitch and out of sync, they sang "Da da da da...da...DAAA!" before presenting two tall black boxes they had been holding behind their backs. Eila recognized them at once.

"Ah!" she gasped in amazement. "Where did you find that!"

Henrich smiled proudly. "I know this little shop in Rheinbach that caters to military personnel from all the allied countries. You can even find Fuso Shōchū there..."

Stuffed animals tucked lovingly under her arm, Eila cradled one of the black boxes reverently in her hands. In glossy black type against the matte black box were the words:

Salmiakki  
liqueur

Looking up at the ground crew slyly, Eila asked mischeivously "want to try some?"

To her surprise, they each pulled out a standard issue tin cup. "We thought you'd never ask," said Otto, grinning.

* * *

One bottle three quarters empty, they sat in the cramped room laughing and swapping stories.

"...so, after a week of riding me, cussing me out, and claiming I was trying to sabotage her, they finally had someone from the factory come out to inspect her strikers," said Ulrich. "The factory sent one of the designers to take a look. He said the same thing I and the other techs told her: there was nothing wrong with the unit; in fact, it was maintained so well he said it looked like it had just come from the factory."

"So what was the problem?" asked Eila, taking another sip of the viscous black liqueur. _Ah, heaven!_

"The designer figured that out pretty quickly. See, on that model the magic reciprocator overflow valve is located in the upper part of the unit. It drains through a rubber tube that snakes down towards the exhaust filter."

"Uh huh..."

"Well, it turned out that Her Luminescence has a bit of a sweet tooth, and had been sneaking to the mess hall at night to help herself to strudel and cake. In the time she'd been there, she'd put on about five kilos. This wouldn't normally be a problem, except that the strikers are already fairly cramped, and the little extra weight on her legs was squeezing the tubing closed."

"Oh, ho ho!" Eila clapped in anticipation.

"With nowhere to drain, the reciprocators were flooding, causing the strikers to stall after about fifteen minutes in the air. The base commander had her grounded and on a strict vegetarian diet until she got back to regulation weight. For about three weeks she wouldn't talk to anyone."

"Best three weeks I had there," Tomas reminisced into his cup.

"She was transferred to Africa about three months after that," added Ulrich.

"By that time, though, we were already at St. Trond," continued Tomas.

"Oh? You guys transfer a lot?" asked Eila, curious.

"Oh, ja," said Heinrich. "There aren't a lot of qualified striker techs - magical mechanics isn't generally taught at technical colleges."

The other mechanics murmured in agreement.

Eila picked up the bottle and portioned out the last of its Salmiakki. "I'm surprised you guys like this," she observed.

"Oh, this is nothing," Otto swaggered. "Do you guys remember that Orussian mechanic?"

The other men groaned.

Turning to Eila, Otto explained. "At St. Trond there was this Orussian mechanic who made his own potato samogon. Stuff was like drinking turpentine!"

"Took Tomas out for two days!" laughed Udo.

"Did not! I just had a stomach flu," Tomas protested.

Otto animatedly acted out in falsetto Tomas' reaction "I'm going blind! Mein gott I'm going blind!" In his normal voice, "stomach flu my arse!"

After jabbing at Tomas a little more, Udo looked at the wall clock and said, "I hate to break up the party, be we have to get to work soon." The men finished their Salmiakki.

"Who's flying night patrol tonight," Eila asked, hoping to hide her anxiousness.

"Let's see," Udo said, thinking. "Last night it was Barkhorn and Hartmann, and the night before it was Sanya and Clostermann. That means tonight it's Sanya and Miyafuji."

"But we hope to see you back in the hanger soon," interjected Ulrich. The others agreed.

"Thanks for stopping by," Eila said sincerely. "I really appreciate it."

"Our pleasure. You take care of yourself and see you back soon!" they replied.

* * *

Eila took a short nap after the ground crew had left. Waking a bit later, she was reading a book Shirley had left her when there was a quiet but purposeful rap on her door. Eila was glad to put down the book. It was interesting enough; a Liberion pulp-fiction about a witch protecting an airfield in the mid-Atlantic - used for refueling transatlantic flights - from the Neurois, but reading in Brittanian made her tired. She wondered if Heinrich's little shop had books in Soumus, and decided to ask him later.

"Enter," she called.

A man in his mid thirties entered the room. He was dressed in slacks, collared shirt, and lab coat. He had on black rimmed glasses and his hair was a little shaggy. He had a gentle expression, and looked vaguely Fusan. If she had been the type of girl who liked boys, she would have called him handsome.

"Flight Lieutenant Juutilainen?" he asked. Eila nodded. "I've been asked by Central Command to interview you about the events surrounding your being shot down."

"Ugh," protested the Soumus witch. "I've already given a report on that."

"I know, I've already read it," he said simply. "I'm here to ask about your magical foresight perception."

Eila looked at him askance. "You don't look military," she said, guardedly.

He chuckled warmly. "I'm not. I'm a civilian attached to military research. I'm a physicist by trade." He smiled self deprecatingly.

"Physicist?" asked Eila, puzzled.

"Yes. Specifically, I study time - what it is, how it operates, its effects on the elementary particles of the universe. Very dry, theoretical stuff. High command wants me to study what was happening with your magic right before you were shot down."

"Why are they interested in that? Why the interest in me? Plenty other witches have been shot down."

He smiled kindly. "They are interested because you have the rarest magical ability of all. You can see the future. The other magical abilities are well understood, if not entirely the source and agency of those powers, at least their result. We can amplify them, through the striker technology, and they can be replicated mechanically - we have machines that enhance strength, speed, even spacial perception. They don't use magic, but they serve essentially the same purpose. But foresight is different. We have no way to amplify or replicate that mechanically; we don't even have a hypothesis of how you do what you do. High Command would very much like to be able to solve that mystery to gain advantage over the Neuroi."

"Don't you have an idea? Don't you study it?"

"No. I study time. What you do is quite different."

"Time? Isn't that something philosophers debate, not scientists?"

Again he chuckled self deprecatingly. "I like to say physicists are philosopher who use math. See, the big question is: what is time? Why does it exist? How does it exist?"

Eila gave him a look as if he were drunk. "What do you mean, what is it, why does it exist?"

"Think about it," he smiled. "We are gaining an understanding of matter, and the forces that govern the universe. They all come from something - interactions between elementary particles, which we can prove through experiments. But not time. Time is still a mystery."

"So, you study this mystery. What do you think it is?"

"Well, Dr. Einstein postulates that time and space are the same thing, and that time exists so everything doesn't happen at once."

Looking at her expression, he tried a different tack. "Okay, you know that two objects can't occupy the same space at the same time, right." Eila nodded. "Okay, so time is the result of interactions between objects in space. Two objects move through space and bump into each other. Since they can't occupy the same space, they have to go somewhere. They move into different space. This is time. My hypothesis is if we discover the smallest quanta of space, we'll also discover the nature of time."

Eila puzzled over his words, glimmer of understanding shining in her mind. "What happens at 'quanta' smaller than that? Isn't space just there? You make it sound like there are particles of space."

"The hypothesis is that space is granular at the quantum level, almost an ether. Time and space don't exist at any smaller quanta; it is too small to occupy, so nothing can happen."

Eila pinched the bridge of her nose. "So what is time, then?"

"It's cause and effect," he said, simply. "Something happens, and there is a result because two objects cannot exist in the same place at once."

"Does that mean everything is predetermined, then?"

"Not at all. There is something that I like to call 'potential.'"

"Potential," Eila said, flatly.

"Yes. We perceive the world in three dimensions, height, width, length, and a fourth dimension: time, or cause and effect. Something happens, and there is a result. In reality, we live in at least five dimensions. If we were to see ourselves in four dimensions, we'd be a long snake-like creature, one end being our birth, the other end our death, with all our moments in-between."

Eila thought about this, conjuring a somewhat distasteful image in her mind of an undulating Eila-worm. "So what would we look like in five dimensions?"

"Still a snake, but we'd see our interactions with other snakes. The fifth dimension is potential - in other words, our choices. For example, let's say you are going to lunch at a restaurant. You have a number of choices. But one choice would have you bump into a childhood friend you haven't seen for years. If you choose that particular restaurant, you meet your friend, you catch-up with her, and you resume your friendship. If you choose any other restaurant, you miss her, and don't resume your friendship. The fifth dimension is that choice in time; you are presented with infinite choices, and by making one choice and not another, you close off an infinite number of results."

"So, doesn't that mean there are fewer choices, and the world is predetermined?"

"Only in that, by making a choice, it becomes predetermined."

"Now you're speaking in riddles."

"In this respect, time is like a funnel, with potential the part that concentrates the flow. The funnel takes in all the infinite potential choices, and out come the choices made. Once made, they could only have been made and can't be unmade."

"But doesn't this imply you can travel back in time?"

"We already can: through our memories. But no, we cannot physically travel back in time, because we would not really be travelling in time/space; we would be trying to travel to another universe."

"What? Another universe?"

"Yes. You see, in making a choice, all the other potential choices split off into their own universe. In those other universes you went to all the different restaurants you could have gone to, but didn't. If you travelled back in time, you'd inevitably try to change one of your choices, meaning you'd try to change the universe...or more precisely, try to go to another universe."

"That's some pretty heavy stuff." Eila tapped the Liberion book. "Sounds like something out of one of these."

He laughed kindly. "You should see the blackboards with the equations!"

"So, if we're five dimensional beings snaking around and bumping into each other through our choices, does this mean people influence events, or events influence people?"

"Now you're being the philosopher!" he grinned. "The answer to that it both. Imagine time as a river, and a particular choice being a pebble thrown into it. You'd get a tiny ripple that would go away. Now take a significant event - or choice - such as the Neuroi invasion. That's like throwing a giant boulder into the river, changing its course."

"Then it stands to reason that a lot of little choices could build up like a lot of little rocks thrown into a river, and eventually change its course."

"Exactly."

"And you think asking me about being shot down will prove your theories?"

"Maybe. Or maybe it will give us insight into how you see the future, without learning anything about the nature of time itself. Either would be valuable insight. Shall we begin?"

Eila nodded.

"Can you describe for me what it's like when you use your Foresight?" he started.

"It's kind of hard to explain..."

"Is it like you see a shadow of events before they happen?" he suggested.

"No... no, it's nothing like that," she said, shaking her head. "It's more like time seems to be moving slower for me when I use my magic."

"So... you are moving faster than the things around you?" he asked, interested.

"Hmmm... no, that's not quite right. I'm moving at normal speed and so is everything else." Eila pinched her lips while she thought more about how to describe how she experienced time through her magic. Brightening, she tried another tack. "You know how you can throw a ball in the air and catch it without looking at it?"

He nodded, encouraging her to continue.

"In fact you're not really catching it without looking at it," she said. "If you were blindfolded you wouldn't be able to catch the ball at all. Instead, what you're doing is seeing it in your peripheral vision, and because you see it, you can move your hand to where the ball will be and catch it. That's sort of how I see time. And because I see the future like that, it feels like time is moving slower for me - I see things peripherally before they happen and so can adjust myself to them."

He wrote furiously in his notebook, muttering "fascinating," to himself. "And what is it like when you try to see too far ahead in time?"

"Have you ever tried on somebody's glasses and they were too strong for you?" He tapped the temples on his glasses, smiling wryly. "Oh, right. Maybe it's the same if you take your glasses off? It gets harder to see the further you look, until everything is all fuzzy and nondescript. You know something's there, but not what. That's sort of what it's like."

He continued with his questions, asking about everything from how far she could see in the future in different situations, to additional questions about how she perceived, including what it looked and felt like. He conducted tests, flipping coins, rolling dice, and holding up cards. He tested far in the future, asking about results to tests he then conducted five minutes, then ten minutes after asking. All the while, he took copious notes in his notebook and wrote answers on the sheets of paper held down in his clipboard. He asked her about her magical history, from when she first manifested, to how she honed her ability. He was fascinated to learn that she was able to almost immediately see future events, and had to learn not to use it indiscriminately, lest she both frighten and annoy the people around her. He asked about how her friends tried to thwart her ability when they played, and paused for just a heartbeat when she replied: "They didn't; they stopped playing with me." He also asked whether she saw the future when she was sleeping or dreaming, whether there were situations when her magical ability didn't work, whether it was a subject or activity, asking delicately whether there was cause to use it in... intimate... situations. Blushing, she told him that such an occasion to use it had never arisen.

He finally came to the end of his questions. He shuffled through his papers once more to make sure he hadn't missed anything, then finally said "I think that's it. Thank you for your patience."

Out of curiosity, Eila asked, "Did this help your understanding of time?"

Folding the papers under his arms, he smiled kindly, but sadly, and said, "I don't know. I'll need to analyze your answers to be sure."

Eila decided to ask him a question that had been bothering her. "Do you have any idea what happened to me? why did I suddenly lose the ability to see the future?"

"I don't know. But do you want my opinion?" Eila nodded, fearfully. "I think you saw your own death."

"But... I didn't die!" Eila protested.

"You could have," he replied. "From what I read in the report, you almost didn't make it. I don't think it is possible for someone to see past their own life. When you were hit, the future wasn't set yet. And so, you only saw the... how did you describe it?" he rifled through his notes. "...black fog blocking your vision."

He bade her farewell, leaving her to ponder what he had said.


	8. Discharge

**Disclaimer: **I don't own strike witches.

This is the final chapter in the "Recovery" cycle. One more cycle left to go...

Thank you to everyone who has read, commented, followed, and favorited. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I do writing it!

* * *

"That's it, just take it easy. One foot after another... just concentrate on taking the next step."

"It feels so stiff and wobbly!"

"That's to be expected. You experienced major trauma. The healing is faster, but the recovery steps remain the same."

Yoshika lent a supporting shoulder to Eila as the Soumi witch took tentative steps down the corridor leading away from the medical unit. The Fuso healer had come in early in the morning and spent half an hour applying her healing magic and running the violet eyed witch through elementary movement excercises: rotating her ankle and wrist, bending her knee and elbow, rotating her shoulder and wiggling her fingers and making a fist. Satisfied with the results of the exercises, Yoshika had Eila stand up and perform knee bends, balance on her left leg, and pick up increasingly heavy objects. Yoshika observed her through the glow of her healing magic, applying where and when necessary to speed the recovery.

Finishing the initial excercises, Yoshika led Eila down the hall on her first walk. Having discharged the pale-blonde, Miyafuji asked the attendant to have Eila's things brought to her quarters. Eila chose to bring the stuffed animals with her.

Wearing her blue military coat over the knee length hospital gown, Eila followed the Fusan witch down the corridors until they reached the bath.

"Oh, yes!" the Soumi witch sighed heavenly. After a week of sponge baths, she was ready for a deep, cleansing shower and soak in the o-furo.

"Take all the time you want," said Yoshika. "And call me if you need anything." She waited patiently in the dressing room while Eila scrubbed herself clean from a week of sweat, oil, dirt, and dead skin, then luxuriated in the hot water of the o-furo. Yoshika could hear snatches of Eila's humming _Sanya's_ _Song_ while she cleaned up.

Eila dressed in the fresh uniform waiting for her in her bin. When she finished, she gently pinched Yoshika's cheek. "Thank you!" she said, sincerely.

From the bath, they made their way to the briefing room. The other witches were beginning to take their seats when they entered the room.

"Eila! Bentornato!" sang Lucchini, clapping her hands.

The witches stood up and crowded around their recovering squad-mate, welcoming her back. Perrine and Lynne each gave her a friendly hug, Shirley clapped her heartily on the back, Barkhorn and Hartmann patted her on the shoulders and beamed with pride at her return, while Lucchini jumped with joy in the back. Sanya made a bee-line for Eila and embraced her. "Dobro pozhalovat, Eila!" she gushed.

Minna and Mio stood at the front of the briefing theater, beaming.

"Welcome back, Eila!" called Mio over the din. Minna nodded.

The witches began making their way back to their seats. Sanya led her girlfriend to their usual spot. After they sat down she wrapped her arms around Eila's left arm and leaned her head against her shoulder. Shirley pulled a five karlsmark bill out of her breast pocket and handed it to Erica, making a mental reminder to never again bet against Sanya's best friend.

"Welcome back, Eila! You've been greatly missed," said Minna, starting the morning briefing.

A second wave of agreement and congratulations quietly rippled through the room. Once it subsided, Minna continued. "To celebrate we will be having high tea on the terrace at 1600 hours." The witches were elated by the news.

Minna continued through the day's schedule and announcements. Because she was not able to fly patrol, Eila was assigned to assist Miyafuji with laundry detail, Perrine with lunch detail, and Erica and Mio with command center duty.

Minna went on to announce the patrol roster. Quietly, Sanya motioned with her nose the stuffed animals sitting on the tabletop in front of them.

"Those are very cute! Where did they come from?" the Orussian witch asked.

"Tomas gave them to me," said Eila with a small touch of wonder.

"Oh? So his grandmother finished it already!" Sanya whispered happily.

"Wha...?! You knew about it?" said Eila, surprised.

"Yes," replied Sanya quietly. "He asked me what your familiar was so she could sew it."

"Ah," Eila said, surprised. She hadn't realized that Sanya knew the ground crew. She felt a tiny pang of guilt for not making an effort to memorize their names before.

"Other items of note: We received notice from Soumus that:," Minna reached down and picked up a sheet of paper. "'In consideration of her being hit by friendly fire, and in consideration of her placing her life in danger to save the life of a fellow witch and her wingmate, the Soumus High Command hereby declares that Eila Ilmatar Juutilainen was not technically shot down, and therefore continues her impeccable record of zero losses.'"

Minna picked up another sheet of paper and quieted down the other witches. "And a second notice from Soumus High Command: 'In recognition of her exceptional bravery on the field of battle and risking her life to ensure the safety of a fellow witch and her wingmate, Eila Ilmatar Juutilainen is hereby awarded the Iron Cross, First Class.'"

The other witches cheered the announcement. "We'll have the award ceremony prior to commencing tea. We will also present the Soumus Cross of Liberty at that time." Eila proudly blushed at the attention, but smiled and thanked her wing-mates.

Minna dismissed the assembled witches. They began breaking for their duties, detouring to welcome their teammate back once more.

As Sanya braced Eila's arm to assist her back to their room, Minna came over to see them.

"I thought I'd let you know that the Soumus High Command has informed us that they are sending replacement strikers to the base. It will be delivered by one Gustav Laakkonen." Eila startled with recognition. "I checked his dossier, and it turns out he's from the same city as you. Do you know him?"

Sanya looked expectantly at Eila. The Soumi witch realized both witches had noticed her reaction. "Yes. We went to the same school together," she admitted.

"That's wonderful, Eila," smiled the Orussian witch, clapping with excitement. "You'll have so much to talk about!"

"Yeah, it's great," the long haired blond replied, feigning enthusiasm.

As Minna headed off to her administrative duties, Shirley came over to the couple on her way out of the briefing room. "Don't break her, Sanya! We still need her," she said with a lewd smile.

Sanya blushed crimson, which set Eila off growling through her own vermillion blush. "Why you little jackrabbit...! Don't talk about Sanya like THAT!"

Shirley laughed heartily as she dashed off, knowing Eila couldn't catch her... yet.

* * *

Back at their room, Sanya quietly shut the door. As always, the curtains were drawn to block the sun so the night witches could sleep. Eila limped over to the seance table and braced against it for balance. Her leg still hurt, and she became tired quickly trying to walk on it, but Miyafuji had said that would soon pass.

Putting the fox and cat on the table, Eila looked about the room as if for the first time. Their bunk sat in one corner, Sanya's cat-penguin propped up on the top, black velvet pillow with red cat silhouette on the bottom. The seance table with crystal ball and her hand-made tarot deck. The wardrobe with her and Sanya's uniforms and other clothes. The writing desk with the ever-growing collection of black and white porcelain cats. The small tea-table with the charcoal-fired samovar that Eila had picked up for Sanya while they looked for traces of the Orussian witch's family in Sankt Peterburg.

_Such simple things,_ she thought to herself. _And yet I missed them so much!_ Eila realized that she had been taking her time together with Sanya for granted. Almost losing Sanya made her realize every moment with her silver-haired angel was a precious gift. She resolved to never do that again.

Turning to Sanya, she said, "It's good to be back h..."

"How could you!"

The Orussian witch pounded on Eila's chest with her small fists. "How could you do that to me? I thought you were going to die! I thought I'd lose you!"

Eila embraced her girlfriend, pulling her closer. "Shhh... it's fine now," she said, trying to calm the silver-haired witch. "I'm okay now, everything will be fine..."

"It's not fine!" replied Sanya, pushing away from Eila. "What were you thinking? You almost got yourself killed!"

"I was trying to protect you..."

"...Oh, Eila! Why did you do that?! What if you had died? What then?"

Eila started opening her mouth to reply, but Sanya continued right over her. "I lost my home! My family! I couldn't bear to lose you too!"

Sanya finally allowed Eila to pull her back, melting into the taller witch's embrace. Eila could feel her tears soaking through her uniform. "I almost lost everything that night," Sanya cried into Eila's chest. "Please, don't ever do that again..."

Eila stood in silence, stroking the smaller witch's hair. How could she explain to Sanya that she felt the same way? That losing her angel would be losing everything? That she would gladly trade her life for Sanya's?

Instead, she mustered all the sincerity in her being and said softly, "I'll never leave you. We'll be together forever."

Teary green eyes looking up into Eila's limpid violet eyes, Sanya asked, "Promise?"

"Always."

Sanya kissed her long-haired lover tenderly, then began unbuttoning her uniform. Slipping off the light blue jacket, she removed Eila's shirt slowly, one button at a time. Shirt fluttering to the floor, she moved the taller witch's hands to her own tie, gently loosening it. Tie snaking to the floor, Eila fumbled with the tiny clasps in the front of Sanya's black corset, then, as it tumbled to the floor, she moved to unfasten the buttons on Sanya's shirt, one by one. In unspoken choreography, they removed each others' clothes; braziers unclasped, leggings peeled off, panties eased past hips to slip down past ankles.

When they were both finally naked, Sanya led Eila to the bed and gently lowered her down. Stradling the pale-haired witch whom she had thought she would lose forever, Sanya made passionate, tender, desperate love to Eila.

She didn't break her.

Eila missed her assigned duties for the day. She wasn't disciplined for the lapse, and Shirley was another forty karlsmark richer.


	9. Radar Duty

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Strike Witches.

Work has been very busy recently - 12 to 16 hour days and weekend hours busy - making writing go a bit slower. Hopefully things will calm down a bit soon and I can concentrate more on the story and post chapters more frequently.

As always, my gratitude to everyone who has read, commented, favorited and followed. Thanks!

* * *

The following day during Eila's radar duty in the command room, forward observers in Karlsland reported a Neuroi headed across the Rhein River in the direction of Düren. Shirley and Lucchini were on patrol and given intercept coordinates; Miyafuji, Bishop, and Clostermann were scrambled to provide support.

Eila sat in the command room in front of the radar array with Minna and Sakamoto. Initially Eila had needed a refresher course from Mio, who clucked disapprovingly as she went over the basics of radar reading and map transposition. Minna tried to soothe the Major, pointing out that, as both a night witch and a high value asset due to her Foresight abilities, Eila had not been assigned to radar support duties for a long time.

Fortunately, the Major was an excellent - albeit strict - instructor, and the Soumi witch was back up to speed in short time. The long-haired blonde soon remembered why she was grateful to have been passed up for radar room duty: she found it deathly boring. The first two hours were spent tracking little green dots across the screen, calculating their map position and projected routes, cross-referencing against a list of scheduled civilian and military flights, and contacting any unidentified flights. The one unknown flight they encountered involved first trying to contact the bogey by radio, and when that failed, sending Shirley and Francesca to visually identify the plane - which turned out to be a Belgica-origin spy plane heading across the Rhein for reconnaissance.

Eila was struggling mightily to keep her eyes open and stifle the yawns that earned her dagger stares from Sakamoto when the call came over the land line. Minna answered, gathering the information relayed from the forward observers.

"Our forward observers report Neuroi activity in grid G-19. They say a fast intercepter class aircraft launched from under forest cover, shot down the spy plane, and is now making its way across the Rhein. Approximate speed is estimated at 450 kilometers per hour, heading west. Although intent is not clear, they suspect a reprisal for violating Karlsland airspace," she relayed to the staff in the command room.

The room burst into purposeful action. A black chit was place on the map at the specified grid marks. Eila and Sakamoto adjusted the radar to pick up the enemy vessel; it was on the further edge of radar range. They took readings every ten seconds; after thirty seconds they used the readings to triangulate the Alien's heading on a slide rule. Sakamoto took a ruler and grease pen and drew a line on the glass covering the map, then drew dotted lines on either side for 20 degree variance.

"Enemy entering grid G-18," announced Eila, slide rule clattering as she calculated its position. One of the command officers moved the chit.

"Where are Lucchini and Yeager?" asked Minna.

Eila took measurements and made quick calculations. "Grid L-10, heading north by north-west." The command officer placed a silver and a yellow chit on the map.

"At the enemy's current speed, what is the optimal intercept point?"

Sakamoto came over to confer with Eila. After several seconds of debate over the maximum intercept speed of the two witches, they calculated the intercept site. "G-9," Sakamoto announced, concurring with Eila's calculations.

Minna nodded. Turning to the dispatcher, she ordered "have Clostermann, Bishop, and Miyafuji sramble. They are to head to Grid G-9 and provide support. Barkhorn and Hartmann are to be on first standby. Litvyak and myself are on second standby." The dispatcher nodded then turned to his PA board. Flipping on the intercom, he announced Minna's orders.

The muffled sounds of the base going on battle alert and witch preparations filtered into the room, and went unnoticed by the command center staff. Sakamoto joined Minna at the map table, relegating Eila to position calculations.

"Support unit one, you are cleared for take-off," Announced the controller at his station. In swift ten second succession:

"Flight Lieutenant Clostermann, taking off!"

"Master Sergeant Bishop, taking off!"

"Sergeant Miyafuji, taking off!"

In short order three more green dots appeared on the screen in front of Eila.

"Yeager and Lucchini's estimated time to intercept point?" Minna demanded.

Eila ran quick calculations "Approximately ten minu... hold on...?!"

The command staff looked up from the map table at directly at the Soumi witch. "The Neuroi is heading South by South West," the pale blonde continued.

Mio dashed over to the radar. "No. It isn't. It's still heading west... _Kuso_!" The glowing green blip that represented the Neuroi suddenly stopped moving from right to left across the screen, and began heading in a downward diagonal. "Enemy has changed heading!" Sakamoto announced. New intercept point..." she made rapid calculations with the slide-rule.

"I-11," announced Eila.

"I-11," confirmed Sakamoto.

Minna gave Eila an unreadable look. Turning back to the command table, she ordered "relay the new intercept point to our airborne witches."

The order was relayed and confirmed. "Calculate possible targets along the new flight path."

The men and women in the command room traced a line along the new flight path and potential deviance. "There are a number of low value targets along the current flight line - some minor supply depots, the towns of Zülpich, Euskirchen, and Swisttal, and any number of smaller villages and defensive posts," one of the staff replied.

Minna, hands laced together, tapped her lips with her index fingers. "This makes no sense," she said out loud to herself. "Why would it change direction? What is its target... unless the target is to draw out and engage our military air assets..."

As Minna pondered the Neuroi's objective, Eila stiffened in her chair. "The enemy is doubling back towards the Karland border!" she announced.

"_Nani_...?" said Mio. The green blip was clearly heading south by... due east. The green dot representing the Alien vessel had begun moving eastward toward the Rhein. "_A-re_!?" exclaimed Mio. "It changed its course again!" she declared.

Brows furrowed, Minna looked over at the Soumi witch, then came over to the radar station. "How do you know the Neuroi will change directions?" she asked, disbelievingly.

Eila looked up at her. "I can sense where the little green dot is going to go," she replied, pointing at the representation of the Alien.

"You can sense the Neuroi from here? Your power works through the radar?!"

"No. I know where the little dot is going to be."

"But the little dot _is_ the Neuroi," the Wing Commander pointed out.

"I can't sense the Neuroi from here; I only sense where the radar dots are going to be," said Eila in exasperation. "Oh! It's going to head south by southwest again," she reported.

There was a pregnant pause as Minna looked at the radar screen. Five seconds later, the green dot changed its heading again. "What in the world...?" she muttered. Shaking her head, she said, "What is the location and heading of the enemy now?" Eila ran the calculations and reported.

Walking back over to the map, she watched the map officer draw the new heading and variance on the glass, while a junior noncom erased the previous heading.

"What is its target?" she asked looking carefully at the map. Precious seconds elapsed as she peered at the map, trying to figure out the Alien's plan.

"We should relay the new intercept location to..." Minna held up her hand for silence, cutting off Mio.

"It's changing course again!" announced Eila. "Heading due south." The map officer began tracing the Alien's path.

"That's it!" Minna exclaimed in sudden realization. "The new intercept location is grid J-9!"

"How do you know?" asked Sakamoto, trying to understand Minna's logic.

Minna stabbed her finger at the map. It rested on a snaking line that resembled a zipper. "There's a supply training scheduled to be moving through here at this time. If the Neuroi destroyed that, this entire region would run out of supplies and ammunition within the week; we'd be unable to repulse a concerted attack."

Mio gasped, wide eyed with understanding. Disrupting the enemy's supply chain was an ancient, and effective, tactic. The Allied forces, already stretched to their limits, would be no match for an enemy blitzkrieg.

"Scramble Hartman and Barkhorn!" Minna ordered. "Relay the new rendezvous coordinates to the witches already in the air. Tell Yeager and Lucchini to double-time it to the grid coordinates; Yeager is to proceed alone if she has to." Mio gave Minna a startled look. The Wing Commander continued. "Eila, I want you to report any deviation from its flight pattern. We have to take this bogey down before it cripples this entire region."

* * *

_"Bogey is targeting a supply train in grid J-9. You are to intercept top speed - alone if necessary,"_ came the order over the radio.

"Roger!" replied Shirley. The order disquieted her: this wasn't like Minna at all. Even though she could be an iron fist gloved in velvet, this command was anachronistically cold. The situation must be serious enough that she would be expected to abandon her wing-mate and junior officer and engage the enemy alone to buy time if needed. She and Lucchini had just become expendable.

She shook her head; _No!_ she thought to herself. _Minna would never callously sacrifice one of her troops._ The situation might be bad, but the Wing Commander must have a fall-back plan. Turning to her wing-mate, she said: "Hang in there, Lucchini! We have some hard flying to do!" Lucchini nodded and chased after her Liberion surrogate mother, pushing herself harder than she'd ever done before.

* * *

Shirley entered the intercept grid, followed ten seconds later by a gasping Lucchini. The younger witch spiraled around trying to catch her breath then doubled over and dry-retched. She could taste the acidic, metallic-copper flavor of blood in her trachea. Shirley flew over and offered her canteen to the raven-haired witch. The Romagnian was soaked; streaks of white salt lined her face. Shirley rubbed Lucchini's back as the younger witch guzzled the canteen's contents.

"This..._gasp_...Neuroi..._gasp_...better..._hack hack_... better rock... _gasp_ ...my world!" groused the younger witch.

_"Target is entering the grid from the north,"_ reported the voice over the radio. _"You should make visual contact any second now."_

Breathing less ragged, the Romagnian witch joined her Liberion wing-mate in scanning the horizon. "There it is!" exclaimed Shirley, pointing. Lucchini followed the Liberion's finger into the distance, where she saw the approaching Alien.

The Neuroi was about the size of a Romagnian Macchi C.202; it was shaped like an angular boomerang, with a fatter tear-drop shaped hump in the middle and four vane-like tales extending from the trailing edge of the vessel on either side halfway between the tear-drop and wing tip, two on both the top and bottom.

"Aw... It's so small! It hardly seems worth the trouble," complained Lucchini, disappointed.

"Let's take it out!" encouraged Yeager. The two witches accelerated in formation toward the target, flicking the safeties off their weapons.

As they came into firing range the Neuroi suddenly banked hard right, sprouting dozens of red beams. Both witches projected their shields, as raw Alien energy battered the blue disks, pushing them backward under the onslaught.

"Whoa!" Francesca exclaimed. "That thing packs one helluva punch!"

"I guess size really doesn't matter!" rejoined Shirley.

Another wall of red beams arced away from the black and red mottled vessel, pounding their shields. The Alien craft suddenly dropped several hundred feet and tried to fly under the witches, launching another barrage of red death.

"How're we gonna shoot that thing down?" asked Lucchini, spiraling out of the way of the incoming beams.

Yeager fired off a salvo of bullets from her Thompson M1 A1. She missed as the Alien barreled out of the line of fire. "Dammit!" she cursed. "We've got to get up close to it!"

"Argh!" exclaimed Francesca as she rolled away from another Alien salvo. One of the enemy's red beams glanced off her shield. The Neuroi banked left and climbed almost a thousand feet, releasing another volley. "How are we going to do that? I've never seen a Neuroi maneuver this fast! And we can't get past its beams!"

Back in the control room, Minna gritted her teeth in frustration. If it could evade Shirley with ease, what hope did Lynette have of hitting it with her Anti-tank rifle? Or Barkhorn or Hartmann getting close enough to shoot it down?

_"Dammit! It moved again! We're losing the bastard!"_ cursed Yeager over the radio.

Minna stared at the map gloomily. _At this rate the Neuroi would take out the train if they didn't find some way to head it off before it..._

A sudden realization hit her. "Eila!" Minna turned to face the Soumi witch. "Can you still predict where the Neuroi is going to move?"

"I've told you, I can't sense the Neuroi, only where..."

"ANSWER THE QUESTION!" barked the Karlslander in her Command Voice.

Eila visibly stiffened. "Ma'am! Yes, Ma'am!" she responded, military training kicked in.

"I want you to feed its course changes to the airborne witches. Only the course changes in cardinal directions. Understood?"

"Yes Ma'am!" the pale-blonde replied.

_"Eila will relay direction changes of the enemy aircraft,"_ came Minna's voice over the radios in Shirley and Francesca's ears. _"You are to use the information to intercept the enemy. Use the location of the sun as your guide,"_ she ordered.

"Roger!" Yeager and Lucchini responded together.

_"Enemy is changing course. South by South East."_ came the Soumi witch's voice over the radio. Shirley and Lucchini began veering off towards the direction indicated when suddenly the Neuroi made its abrupt course change.

"Son of a ...!" swore Shirley.

"How is she doing that?!" Lucchini asked in amazement.

"We'll ask her that later," replied Shirley, a glint of malicious joy in her eyes. "Let's take this bastard down!" The witches peeled off in the direction of the Alien vessel.

_"Due South."_ came Eila's voice. The two pursuit witches adjusted course before the Neuroi made its turn, gaining precious ground.

Eila's voice buzzed directions tinnily in their ears in rapid succession. _"West by South West. West. South by South East. South. West. South. East by South East."_ Each time, they corrected course ahead of the Alien, closing ground.

They quickly learned there were limits to what the Soumi witch could predict. She was unable to tell them whether the Alien craft would climb or dive, spiral, or otherwise change altitude. Back in the control room she told an impatient Minna "I can't tell what's happening in three dimensions from a two dimensional radar screen!"

As they fast approached grid J-9 they heard Perrine announce over the radio: _"This is support group one. We have reached the designated target area and are preparing to engage the enemy."_ Even from a distance, Perrine, Lynnette, and Yoshika could see the Neuroi flitting about madly, trying to shake its pursuers.

_Mon Dieu! It's moving too fast! We'll have only one chance to take it down._ Considering potential attack strategies, she made a quick decision. "Yoshika, brace Lynne for firing and protect her with your shield. Lynne, pour everything you've got into that thing the moment you get a clear shot," she ordered over the radio.

Shirley instantly understood Perrine's plan. "Lucchini," she said to the junior witch. "We'll be getting only one pass at this thing. Attack opposite my lead and pour everything into it. Don't miss."

Lucchini performed an indignant barrel roll. "When have I ever missed?" she asked, pointing her free thumb at her heaving chest and smiling with pride at being the squadron's expert marksman.

As Perrine accelerated ahead Yoshika carefully swept up under Lynne and eased herself between the long-haired brunette's legs. She longingly felt the silky softness of Lynne's pants and the supple flesh underneath on the nape of her neck, Lynne's soft, creamy thighs on her palms, and longed to touch the Brittanian's firm, voluptuous... _Stop it!_ Miyafuji berated herself, trying to squeeze the thoughts out through her eyes. _Concentrate on the mission!_

Ahead, the three witches closed the distance on the enemy craft. Eila called forward another course change, the three witches adjusted acordingly.

"What's your call, Perrine?" asked Yeager.

"You, then Lucchini, then I will make passes at the enemy at two second intervals on my mark."

"Roger!" replied the Liberion and the Romagnian.

_"East by South East."_ buzzed Eila's voice in their ears. The witches adjusted as the Alien abruptly changed course again.

"Now!" shouted Perrine.

Yeager opened the accelerator throttle to full and raced towards the enemy craft, emptying her clip into the black and red vessel as she passed by, spraying up a fountain of silver shards. They Nueroi climbed to escape Shirley's attack run, only to be caught in the line of fire as Lucchini flew at the Alien, unloading her weapon at it, blowing holes through the opposite side. The Neuroi banked to the left to avoid a collision with Lucchini's stacked shields, only to fall prey to Perrine's strafing run. As she flew by the enemy craft she shouted "_Tonnerre_!" unleashing a blast of lightning into the Alien. The Neuroi lost forward momentum and began spiraling toward the ground as its surface exploded into silver shards. Lynne's Boys Antitank rifle echoed its signature report as five super-charged rounds slammed into the Alien craft. With a glassy crackle and chime the Neuroi exploded into silvery dust that rained harmlessly down on the ground below.

"Uh, Yoshika? You can let me go now. Please...?" implored Lynne. Yoshika didn't hear her - her mind was otherwise occupied.

* * *

When Barkhorn and Hartmann arrived in the grid, Minna ordered Yeager, Perrine, Lucchini, and Bishop back to base, having exhausted their ammunition. Yoshika was ordered to remain with the Karlsland witches and protect the train until it arrived at the supply depot, which was heavily guarded by air, ground, and anti-aircraft forces.

Back in the command room, Minna was questioning Eila about her Foresight ability.

"I'm _telling_ you, I can Forsee where the green dot is going to be."

"But it's a dot on a screen! How does that even work?" demanded Minna in disbelief.

"I don't know. Maybe the same way I can see what the next playing card will be, or dice throw, or coin toss? I just see what is going to happen next," she replied, helplessly trying to explain her magical ability.

"Has this happened before when you were on radar duty?"

"Maybe? Usually the enemy isn't making wild and random turns like this, so it's never really been of use."

Minna held her chin and thought for a moment. Eila's Foresight ability certainly had potential they had never before contemplated. She wondered what else it could be used to predict.

"Shall we schedule her for more radar duty?" asked Mio. Considering the loss of her own ability to see Neuroi cores, predicting the flight path of the enemy was a valuable asset.

Eila had not released her magic yet. The hair on her familiar's tail bristled, the fox ears twitched anxiously, while the hairs on the back of her neck rose at the thought of even more brain numbing boredom in front of the round screen. She smiled nervously through gritted teeth while sweat beaded at her temples, bracing herself for the worst.

Minna contemplated this. Finally, she shook her head, "No. Her ability is more valuable in combat, and we're always short willing night witches." She turned to Eila and motioned the Soumi witch to follow her to her office.

"Eila, this battle has shown your talents are hardly even tapped," the Wing Commander started after they had both sat down. "I need you to think of other military uses your ability could be applied to. You've been coasting for too long time on raw talent. I need you to start taking on more responsibility from now on - be more of a leader in the group."

"Uh, yes ma'am," the blonde replied, hesitatingly. "I'll do my best."

Minna leveled her gaze at Eila and held it for several heart-beats. "I know you will," she affirmed. "Dismissed."

Eila left the office with relief. Her superior officers had always viewed her with reservation. Her magical ability allowed her to rack up an impressive number of kills against the Alien invaders, and kept her safe from harm - _usually,_ she thought as she limped down the cooridor. But it also allowed her to be something of a free spirit within the rigid military structure. While commanding officers feared her near invulnerability made her reckless and thus posed a risk to her comrades, it also made them tolerate her antics and disregard for certain rules and regular duties for fear of losing such an important asset. Being shouldered with more responsibility would also mean there would be less tolerance for her eccentricities and antics. On the other hand, Sanya was always encouraging her (pushing it sometimes felt like) to do her best and apply herself within the squadron, cajoling her into special training and admonishing her to be more serious in non-combat situations.

Nodding to herself, she resolved she would take on this resposibility and make her Orussian angel proud. With renewed purpose, she made her way gingerly to her next assignment.


End file.
